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introvertguide · 4 years

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North by Northwest (1959); AFI #55

The next film for review was the Hitchcock classic North by Northwest (1959). This movie has possibly the most well known surprise attack scene in American cinema involving a crop duster. I know, it sounds great. The film was moderately successful at the box office and marked the one and only time that Alfred Hitchcock worked with MGM. It was also only one of two VistaVision films made at the studio. Hitchcock was not a man to let studios mess with his work, so he famously refused to cut 15 minutes out of the movie for time and instead cut a total of 5 seconds worth of material. Before I go into any more detail, I feel like this is bordering quickly on spoilers so let me get the warning and the synopsis out of the way:

SPOILER ALERT!!!! THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE THAT I KNOW VERY WELL AND FEEL LIKE IT SHOULD BE SEEN BEFORE IT IS DISCUSSED!!! I AM GOING TO GO OVER THE FILM IN GREAT DETAIL SO CHECK IT OUT BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER!!!

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The whole story begins with a case of mistaken identity. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an advertising executive who is going to lunch to have a business meeting. He sits down and then remembers he needs to phone his mother so he summons the waiter to ask about a phone. Apparently the waiter had just received a call for a spy named George Kaplan and some thugs are waiting for a signal that will identify the man. Thornhill’s signal is mistaken for the spy’s and the thugs move in and take away the ad exec at gunpoint. They go to the home of U.N. Diplomat Lester Townsend and Thornhill is interrogated by a spy named Philip Vandamm (James Mason) and his right hand man Leonard (Martin Landau). Thornhill tries to say he is innocent, but Vandamm and the thugs do not believe him and stage his death by drunken car accident. Thornhill survives and escapes by car, but he is still drunk and is subsequently stopped and arrested by the Glen Cove police for drunk driving.

Thornhill sleeps off his intoxication at the station and calls his mother to get in contact with their lawyer. The next day, Thornhill tells the local court everything that he remembers happening, but nobody believes him. He even takes them back to the house and a woman claiming to be Townsend’s wife acts like Thornhill was there for a party and left drunk. Thornhill has to pay the fine (a whole $2), but he is still curious.

Thornhill and his mother go back to the restaurant where he was kidnapped and finagle their way up into the attached hotel to find the real spy, George Kaplan. It turns out that nobody has ever seen this man in person so everybody just assumes that Thornhill is Kaplan since he showed up at the room. The thugs have returned and try to recapture Thornhill still thinking he is Kaplan, but Thornhill is able to escape. He goes and visits the UN to talk to Townsend in an effort to shine a light on the situation, but Townsend is confused and says that his wife died many years ago. Suddenly, a knife is thrown into the back of Townsend and all the witnesses around think that Thornhill did it as there is nobody else to blame. Thornhill again escapes and is now running away and trying to find Kaplan in hopes of clearing his name.

I very quick scene of an American intelligence agency meeting reveals that Kaplan never existed and that this was a made up spy to keep Vandamm occupied while they figure out his plans. It is unfortunate for Thornhill, but all agree that he will have to become Kaplan and more than likely die by the hands of Vandamm and his men. Thornhill is unaware of this meeting and continues to run around looking for this non-existent spy.

Thornhill is able to sneak on a train to go to Chicago since he believes that Kaplan is at a hotel there. He runs into a lovely blonde named Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who seems aggressively interested in him and wants to help him hide out. She knows that he is the man who is being blamed for the murder of the UN diplomat and she seems to want to sleep with him (like a groupie)? She is very straight forward and it turns out that this is because she is working for Vandamm, who is also on the train.

In the morning, Eve helps Thornhill arrange a meeting with the non-existent Kaplan at an isolated rural bus stop outside of the Chicago. Thornhill gets there and finds...nothing? A guy shows up but he is just waiting for the next bus. The only thing around is a biplane crop duster that seems to be dusting empty fields. It dramatically turns and swoops down at Thornhill firing a backloaded machine gun. Thornhill is able to hide in the fields and then manages to get under a passing oil truck, which the biplane smashes into and eventually explodes.

Thornhill steals a truck and reaches Kaplan's hotel in Chicago to discover that Kaplan had already checked out and left before the time when Eve claimed she talked to him on the phone. Thornhill goes to her room and confronts her and she plays naïve. She tries to run away while he is changing clothes, but he quickly follows her down to an auction where he finds her with Vandamm. He insults her coldly and then makes his escape from Vandamm by turning himself in, but the police strangely won’t take him to the station and instead leave him in the care of a man simply called The Professor (Lee Carroll).

The professor finally reveals to Thornhill that Kaplan doesn’t exist and that Eve is actually a government agent working for the U.S. It is also explained that Vandamm has some sort of evidence/information that he is trying to take out of the country and will be leaving by plane from his South Dakota home that is in the woods right next to Mount Rushmore. The Professor leaves Thornhill to play the role of Kaplan and negotiates for Eve at the Mount Rushmore visitor center and she seemingly shoots him to look good in front of Vandamm. Luckily the gun is loaded with blanks (remember this gun, it will come back).

Afterwards, the Professor arranges for Thornhill and Eve to meet and Thornhill learns that she must depart with Vandamm and Leonard on a plane. When Thornhill tries to dissuade her from going, he is knocked unconscious by another one of The Professor’s men and locked in a hospital room. Thornhill is able to escape (he gets out of everything) custody and goes to Vandamm's house to rescue Eve from leaving.

At the house, Thornhill sneaks around and overhears that the sculpture that Vandamm bought at the auction holds some kind of microfilm. Leonard also reveals to Vandamm that the gun was a blank and it is decided that Eve will be killed on the plane. Thornhill must keep Eve from getting on the plane so he gives her a note revealing the plot. She is being lead out to the plane and she makes a break for it, meets Thornhill, and they climb out on to Mount Rushmore to escape. The Professor rushes in with his men and arrests Vandamm while also shooting Leonard.

Unfortunately, Eve has slipped climbing around on the president faces and Thornhill is attempting to pull her back to safety when...he is now suddenly pulling her onto a foldout train bed and he is calling her Mrs. Thornhill. The train enters a tunnel and the movie ends.

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This was the fourth and lowest rated Hitchcock film on the AFI top 100, but I opine that it is the most fun. The constant escapes and the almost relatable situation of a businessman getting wrapped up in something of which he wanted no part of makes this a very easy watch. There really are no slow points in this film and the action is punctuated by good comedy. Drunken Thornhill trying to explain what happened and then desperately bidding at an auction to bide time for an escape his hilarious. My favorite line in the film is when Thornhill and The Professor are waiting at the Mount Rushmore visitor center and Thornhill looks through a viewing scope and says “I don’t like the way that Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.” That is awesome.

As much as Alfred Hitchcock was the Master of Suspense and the King of Dramatic Climax...his endings aren’t generally very good. He did a terrific job wrapping up Rear Window (1954), making sure all storylines were finished, but he really didn’t end North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), or The Birds (1963). The movie Psycho (1960) did have an ending, but it was an exposition dump that really was the low part of the film. I love all of these films and the suspenseful build-ups to the dramatic climaxes are extraordinary and put them in a class of their own, but I would not call Hitchcock one to demand a satisfying resolution.

I know that I have done it for every one of the Hitchcock movies on the AFI list, but I again want to give a shout to Saul Bass for the opening credits and Bernard Hermann for the score. The intro to a Hitchcock film puts you in the mood for a good story and the score keeps you interested all the way to the end.

There were some questions from my parents as well as from a couple of viewers about the biplane scene. How was it that the plane passed by and then machine gun fire followed? Well, the plane was a N3N Canary, also known as the “Yellow Peril,” and was a tandem seat training biplane that had an open cockpit. This means that there had to be a a guy in the back with a gun shooting backwards. These were generally converted for agricultural use at the end of WW2. The plane that blew up was a different plane (a Stearman Boeing Model 75 trainer) that was also used as an agricultural duster. Empire magazine rated this scene as the greatest movie moment of all time.

Now that the group has been watching so many movies from Old Hollywood, it became apparent to me how extraordinarily dirty the language was on the train between Roger and Eve. I remember reviewing this film in a college film course and the professor commenting over the scene. She mentioned that this was the only scene of the film that had any cuts and they were made by Hitchcock himself. I also remember Eva Marie Saint saying she was 26 and the professor said, “Ha! Plus 10!” This was a mid 20s female character (played by an actress in her 30s) trying to actively bed a character in his mid 40s (played by an actor in his 50s) who she has just met and spent a total of 5 minutes with. It was all sorts of awkward, and it was great.

So. Should this move be on the AFI top 100? Yes. Probably higher in rank. I was just thinking of another Cary Grant film that is higher on the list, The Philadelphia Story (1940), and how this film is so much more fun. I think that there are other Hitchcock films like Rebecca (1940) and The Birds (1963) that could be on this list, but I guess 4 films from a director that isn’t American is a good representation. North by Northwest is definitely a deserving example. Would I recommend it? Yes. Heck, you can borrow my copy as long as you bring it back. I have seen the film probably two dozen times in the last 20 years and I would be happy to see it again if it means somebody can experience it for the first time. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.

#alfred hitchcock #cary grant #eva marie saint #james mason #north by northwest #afi top 100 movies #movie review #film critique #synopsys #best movie scenes #introvert #introverts #film stills #spoilers

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doomonfilm · 4 years

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Memories : The Best Films of the 2010s

Only a few years into my tenure as a film blogger, and I’ve been tasked with a monumental undertaking : ranking the top films of the last decade. Reflecting year by year is a journey in its own right, and with things like recency bias to take into account, plus the dice roll of blessing and curse that perspective and time bring to older films, I knew that this would be memorable at best, and stressful at worst.

That being said, I don’t claim to have seen every movie, so I know that there are some ‘glaring’ omissions. I am always open to recommendations for films I should watch (for the purpose of blogging on them or otherwise), but DOOMonFILM has always been about my personal experience as a film fan, first and foremost. Discussion is welcome, and constructive criticism will always be considered, but this is one man’s opinion.

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THOUGHTS ON THE DECADE

The 2010s, despite moments of controversy in terms of diversity, turned out to be surprisingly forward-thinking in hindsight. On more than one occasion in the decade, the film of the year (in terms of awards or in terms of critical/public reception), as well as highlight films of each year, were made by foreign directors. Women and minorities also managed to be recognized in front of and behind the camera at what seemed like a higher rate. Newer technologies were embraced, such as pushes forward in new cameras or directors opting to shoot on devices as small as iPhones, leaps forward in special effects, and a multitude of movies given the iMax treatment. A handful of directors happened to put out multiple movies throughout the decade, and a few of those in that handful managed to make multiple award-winning and widely accepted films. Marvel left such an impact on Hollywood, and the worldwide movie industry, that DC was forced to try and follow suit, and mergers with Sony and Disney were top tier news for months on end. Actors like Scarlett Johanson, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, solidified themselves as box-office legends, while actors on both sides of their career (first-timers and those in the twilight of their career) found success throughout the decade. All in all, it was a decade that continued to make me happy to be a movie fan, and as hard as it was to do, I managed to find 100 films throughout the decade to rank.

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100. It Comes at Night (dir. Trey Edward Shults, 2017) 99. Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn, 2010) 98. The Peanuts Movie (dir. Steve Martino, Andy Beall and Frank Molieri, 2015) 97. Everybody Wants Some!! (dir. Richard Linklater, 2016) 96. Upstream Color (dir. Shane Carruth, 2013) 95. Avengers : Age of Ultron (dir. Joss Whedon, 2015) 94. John Dies at the End (dir. Don Coscarelli, 2013) 93. Doctor Strange (dir. Scott Derrickson, 2016) 92. Keanu (dir. Peter Atencio, 2016) 91. Free Fire (dir. Ben Wheatley, 2017) 90. Upgrade (dir. Leigh Whannell, 2018) 89. Chappie (dir. Neill Blomkamp, 2015) 88. American Ultra (dir. Nima Nourizadeh, 2015) 87. I, Tonya (dir. Craig Gillespie, 2017) 86. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater, 2014) 85. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson, 2014) 84. La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2016) 83. Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2015) 82. Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy, 2014) 81. Sicario (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2015) 80. Looper (dir. Rian Johnson, 2012) 79. The Killer Inside Me (dir. Michal Winterbottom, 2010) 78. Hell or High Water (dir. David Mackenzie, 2016) 77. End of Watch (dir. David Ayer, 2012) 76. Django Unchained (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 75. Thoroughbreds (dir. Cory Finley, 2018) 74. Chronicle (dir. Josh Trank, 2012) 73. Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier, 2011) 72. Black Mirror : Bandersnatch (dir. David Slade, 2018) 71. Detroit (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 2017) 70. BlacKkKlansman (dir. Spike Lee, 2018) 69. Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018) 68. I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck, 2017) 67. Straight Outta Compton (dir. F. Gary Gray, 2015) 66. Kubo and the Two Strings (dir. Travis Knight, 2016) 65. It Follows (dir. David Robert Mitchell, 2014) 64. Logan Lucky (dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2017) 63. Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele, 2017) 62. Booksmart (dir. Olivia Wilde, 2019) 61. Beats, Rhymes & Life : The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (dir. Michael Rapaport, 2011) 60. Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig, 2017) 59. Moonrise Kingdom (dir. Wes Anderson, 2012) 58. The Cabin in the Woods (dir. Drew Goddard, 2012) 57. Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2010) 56. Captain America : The Winter Soldier (dir. Joe Russo, 2014) 55. If Beale Street Could Talk (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2018) 54. Avengers : Infinity War (dir. Anthony Russo, 2018) 53. True Grit (dir. Ethan and Joel Cohen, 2010) 52. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (dir. Martin McDonagh, 2017) 51. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014) 50. Midsommar (dir. Ari Aster, 2019) 49. Journey to the West : Conquering the Demons (dir. Stephen Chow and Derek Kwok, 2013) 48. Sorry To Bother You (dir. Boots Riley, 2018) 47. Mid90s (dir. Jonah Hill, 2018) 46. Logan (dir. James Mangold, 2017) 45. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017) 44. Phantom Thread (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017) 43. The Hateful Eight (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2015) 42. Exit Through the Gift Shop (dir. Banksy, 2010) 41. The Irishman (dir. Martin Scorsese, 2019) 40. Suspiria (dir. Luca Guadagnino, 2018) 39. The VVitch (dir. Robert Eggers, 2016) 38. Dogtooth (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2010) 37. The Lighthouse (dir. Robert Eggers, 2019) 36. Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland, 2018) 35. Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) 34. Beyond the Black Rainbow (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2012) 33. The Favourite (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018) 32. Searching (dir. Aneesh Chaganty, 2018) 31. Tangerine (dir. Sean Baker, 2015) 30. Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2014) 29. Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013) 28. Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2017) 27. Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2017) 26. Baby Driver (dir. Edgar Wright, 2017) 25. Joker (dir. Todd Phillips, 2019) 24. The Neon Demon (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016) 23. Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman, 2018) 22. The Shape of Water (dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2017) 21. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010) 20. Frances Ha (dir. Noah Baumbach, 2013) 19. Under the Silver Lake (dir. David Robert Mitchell, 2019) 18. Mad Max : Fury Road (dir. George Miller, 2015) 17. Good Time (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2017) 16. Mandy (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2018) 15. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019) 14. Her (dir. Spike Jonze, 2013) 13. The Lobster (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015) 12. Inherent Vice (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014) 11. The Master (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)

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10. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (dir. Joe Talbot, 2019)

I saw this film as the decade was winding to a close, but it made easily one of the starkest impressions on me of any film-going experience I can recall. The movie looks amazing, the score and soundtrack are powerful, the acting is rich and dynamic, San Francisco is as beautiful on film as it is in real life, and the thoughts that arise from the narrative presented are the kind that hang around and result in personal changes that matter. A shining achievement from a stellar year of film.

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9. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010)

If Christopher Nolan wasn’t already considered top tier prior to Inception, any doubters were left floored at the close of this masterpiece. For a story that could have easily been way too convoluted for standard audiences, the visuals, direction and pacing guide us through the madness perfectly. For anyone interested in dream depictions on cinema, for fans of stellar action, and for the smart people who know the quality that comes with the Nolan name, this one was a no-brainer.

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8. mother! (dir. Darren Aronofsky, 2017)

After being a bit on the nose with Noah, in terms of a film on religion, most directors would take that as a sign to move on from the topic. For a director like Darren Aronofsky, however, the next step was to seemingly go back to your mind-scrambling roots, dig deeper symbolically, narratively and metaphorically, and come back to the table with one of the most divisive and controversial films of the decade. mother! will clearly be a film ripe for analysis for years to come, and for as subjective and deep an experience as the film is, this reflection is welcome, as it serves to enrich future viewing experiences.

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7. Uncut Gems (dir. Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)

How long does a film have to be out to be considered one of the best of the decade? In the case of Uncut Gems, I will allow recency bias, as it is clearly evident at the beginning of the closing credits that the film is special and will resonate for years to come. The Safdie brothers already had a classic under their belt with Good Time, and throwing that Sandler magic into the mix only amplifies their heightened and immersive style.

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6. The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker, 2017)

There are a small fraternity of directors that put out their first films and follow-up films in the 2010s, and while examples of possible award snubs can be found for these directors, there was one clear-cut case of oversight : the 2017 lack of recognition for Sean Baker’s immaculate, beautiful and moving The Florida Project. While Tangerine was certainly the loudest of warning shots a first time director could provide, the amount of growth, nuance and confidence found in this follow-up deserved multiple awards, not just an acting nod for Willem Dafoe. Perhaps Baker’s next film will bring him the recognition he deserves in terms of awards, but he’s already made a clear cut name for himself.

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5. Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster, 2018)

I rediscovered a love for horror films in the 2010s, and a key reason would be the emergence of director Ari Aster. Upon seeing trailers for Hereditary, I knew that it would probably scare the life out of me, but the taste of the story given was so gripping I had to see it. The fact that the trailer was so powerful, only for the movie to unfold in ways that I never would have imagined or discerned from the trailer, was one of the most rewarding film experiences of the decade. Toni Collette also gave a performance for the ages.

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4. You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2018)

It’s arguable that Joaquin Phoenix may have had the strongest decade of any actor, and for my money’s worth, he was at his best in You Were Never Really Here. Much of the angst presented was previously explored in The Master, and as great as Joker is, it’s essentially the DCEU version of You Were Never Really Here, tonally and in terms of specific elements. Nobody short of the Safdie brothers are making movies that look, sound and feel like this one, and the unfortunate practice of human trafficking hitting the news forefront makes this film as timely as it is sad.

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3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (dir. Edgar Wright, 2010)

Hands down the coolest film of the decade. Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had so many elements that I loved from other properties managed to find their way into the same movie, and the way that the gumbo was prepared and served was pitch perfect. As my friend Erin stated after we viewed the film, ‘If you watch this movie and don’t like it, I don’t think we can be friends’. Some of my favorite sequences of any film are in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and this is the EXACT kind of film I look forward to one day sharing with my children.

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2. Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Another recent film that made an instant impact. In terms of topics like honesty, entitlement, and family dynamics, nothing I can think of in recent memory is touching Parasite. The parallels between the two families presented are perfect both visually and in the performances, and with each new bit of information presented, much of what you were previously presented is immediately recontextualized and put into question. This film, from front to back, is one of the most gripping journeys a filmgoer can take.

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1. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2014)

Easily my favorite film of the decade. This is the closest thing to a song-poem that I’ve ever seen presented on film, and it’s heartbreakingly beautiful. Nothing else released in the decade looked or sounded like this film, and the way it meta-reflects on Hollywood, Broadway, superhero films and the importance of actors is equal parts hilarious, thought-provoking and wonderfully frustrating. The film answers enough questions it posits so as to not completely confound the viewer, but it leaves enough open-ended so that repeat viewings are rewarding. A true achievement of film, regardless of decade.

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sveasauvageon · 4 years

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On pleure mais on survit quand même C'est la beauté du requiem || HSWW

☾♔; February 22, 2018 ☾♔; sotd: X-Files Theme (by Mark Snow, I think) ☾♔; cotd: DANA MOTHERFCKING SCULLY ☾♔; Plotting + Relationships ☾♔; {G} https://goo.gl/PnjH23 ☾♔; Mod(s): @.miky94

Title: lyrics from Requiem by Alma

Svea Sauvageon is FINALLY open for plotting.

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Audition: https://goo.gl/9JRWrR Aesthetics and Such: https://goo.gl/qDJazT Svea's Playlist: https://goo.gl/vaSFwA Svea x Henry Playlist: https://goo.gl/Wwgx4s Wardrobe: https://goo.gl/g8rBdV Sauvageon Family Aesthetics: [placeholder] All Sets: https://goo.gl/5HG1rA

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Format credit to @.natasha-maree13, @.themadmonarchist, and @.lady-stoneheart because I somehow managed to mix together (rip off) all three of you.

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Plotting Rules and Guidelines: I. Please put some thought and effort into your suggestions, I'm going to ignore anything that says something to the effect of "I dunno, here's my set, what do you think." That's just lazy and rude. I won't straight up ignore something that just says "friends" with no explanation, but I would appreciate more effort that that. It's doesn't have to be a George R. R. Martin book, but at least a sentence or two. Please and thank you.

II. If I say nyet to something, I don't just mean nyet forever, stay away from my baby. I just may not like the idea or it may not work with my character, and I will usually offer a counterproposal, but if I'm out of ideas, I'll let you know, and we can bounce around different ideas until we're both satisfied. S III. Please remember to attach your plotting sets. XD

☆──════♦basics♦════──☆

| full name: Svea Richelle Estelle Sauvageon

| nicknames: Vea (Vay-ah), V, the Swede, Stella (by her Grandmama), my moon and stars (Grandpapa), Richelle (her mother), princess (papa)

| age: 17 (or 16 if we're starting the group in September, but she'd turn 17 in 3 months)

| gender: female

| sexuality: heterosexual

| birth date: November 23

| blood status: pure-blood (though, not the purest. Her mother's family is a straight-up blood-purist type family, but her father's is far more open, and if you trace back 5 generations, there's a muggle-born, as well as muggles and etc further back. So technically, she is a "pure" blood, since that term is generally applied to someone whose ancestors up to their grandparents have no muggle or muggle-born blood, but there are numerous muggles and muggle-borns if you go back beyond that, on her father's side. Her mother's is as inbreed as the royal families of the real world.)

| place of birth: Enköping, Sweden

| accent: alternates between Swedish and Posh English, usually depending on her level of anger/passion

| pet: a tiger patterned kitten, super smol and super cute, but has been a "kitten" for a suspiciously long time. It's been tiny and like a baby since she first got it in her fourth year, though she simply claims that it's a rare Swedish breed. She named it Vhagar.

| patronus: dragon (Swedish Short-Snout)

| wand: Acacia wood with a dragon heartstring core, 11 ¾" in length and rather inflexible

| residence: Hogwarts Castle (September through May), Prince Estate, located near Cornwall (rest of the year, and more legally speaking, than physically, rarely spends more than two weeks there), Sauvageon Estate, located in Enköping, Sweden (generally where she spends her holidays)

☆──════♦hogwarts stats♦════──☆

| house: Slytherin

| year: seven

| best class: Arithmancy and History of Magic (honestly, she's great at all of her classes, but those two are her highest scores)

| worst class: none

| favourite class: care of magical creatures

| o.w.l.s: outstanding in all subjects

| extracurriculars: Quidditch (Slytherin Chaser)

☆──════♦appearance♦════──☆

| overall: she's quite physically attractive (and she's aware of it), she tends to draw stares where ever she goes, and that's not including her extravagant style and taste in friends. Alongside being generally super beautiful, she's also physically fit (having been a chaser for years), has high cheekbones, and an overall very gorgeous, European look.

| hair colour: blonde, sometimes magically died platinum/silvery-gold (because she's a nerd)

| hair style: long, and generally tied into a different style everyday; ponytails, elaborate braids, etc. When's she's feeling lazy, she'll just leave it free, yet it always ends perfectly straight without any effort on her part.

| eye colour: light blue

| body: slim and athletic

| ethnicity: caucasian (Swedish/British with French ancestry)

| height: 1.73m/5'7"(ish)

| style: erratic, she wears numerous styles, and doesn't really have one exactly, though if you wanted to summarize her closet in a single word; expensive would be that word. She prefers clothes of silk, cashmere, or leather, and tends towards gem embellished things.

| faceclaim: Cara Delevingne

☆──════♦persona♦════──☆

| personality: Svea is an "odd" Slytherin, as she does not prescribe to the concept of blood purity in the least, nor is she an active bully. She's Swedish (half), they're an amazingly liberal and socialist country, and she's quite proud of that. However, that doesn't mean she's not an arrogant, full of herself, elitist arsehole, because she absolutely is. In fact, one could argue that she's more arrogant and elitist than the average Slytherin, since she feels she's earned her arrogance. She's an extremely dedicated, hardworking, and ambitious person, going above and beyond for everything she attempts. She's a high-achieving, type-a sort of person, she believes that if you want something, you need to work to earn it, a line of thinking which sometimes alienates her own housemates, but if you don't have any skills of note, you're not worthy enough to chill with her. She's extremely opinionated, and passionate, and generally walks around like she owns the place. However, despite being one of the biggest elitist arseholes around, she's also, contradictorily, extremely liberal. The most clear example of her liberalism being her hatred of the concept of blood purity. She was raised on Swedish ideals, a very liberal and socialist nation where blood purity or "impurity" was irrelevant, blood is blood, move the fck on. Discrimination on things like blood status or socio-economic status, she will not allow because that's stupid af and Slytherin is not a house for morons. Despite her elitism, when she's your friend, she's heavily involved, from studying to hanging out, whatever. She cares deeply when she cares and will not tolerate any harm coming to those for whom she cares, hexing such people with barely a second thought.

Svea is someone who tends to internalize her own problems, she's highly self-aware and when genuinely hurt by something or someone, she tends to just walk away and brood silently in a dark corner. She sees herself as a leader and leader's can't go around showing weakness, so she struggles to open up about that side to even her closest friends (also most of her friends are probably arseholes, Slytherins, so that's not the best idea anyway). Having said that, she's always around to give (unsolicited) advice/offer to hex someone. She's not a very loose or "go with the flow" type of person, she hates such thinking, like, no, think about what you want to do. Fun is best when it's planned well in advance. She's mildly OCD, it's not obsession, it's the correct way of doing things. She won't throw a tantrum (generally), but will move her things back into place. However she's not what we would call neat, she leaves her things all over, though she claims that's it's "controlled chaos", and she does always seem to immediately find whatever she was looking for. Svea is rather independent, and goes about her business with little care for what others think about it. She is a little vain, but like, look at her, why shouldn't she be? And has zero trouble using her beauty to manipulate people into doing what she wants. She's somewhat aggressive and rather commanding, generally speaking to elders and fellow students with the same tone of mild to moderate superiority, but contradictorily, is quite helpful and nice to first years (what, she has a soft spot for smol, cute things).

Despite all her elitism, and superiority complex, Svea is a passionate and hardworking individual who puts her all into work and friendship. She cares deeply when she cares, and generally has an attitude of "if you want respect, earn it."

| likes: stupid puns, muggle space exploration science, quidditch (Vrastra Vultures forever btches!), winter, snow, muggle technology, EUROVISION (hey, she's a European, and a Swede, they love the Eurovision), Melodifestivalen, muggle EuroPop music, football (aka soccer, but she European, she call it by its proper name. Also, ARSENAL FOREVER BÌTCHES), Aaron Ramsey, muggle history, magical history, the stars, the night sky, a song of ice and fire (of course), Dragons, Sweden, magic, her wand (precious), Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Vhagar (precious baby), muggle comedy panel shows, herself (ya seen her? She's real pretty), emeralds, satin, muggle drinks (vodka and ice coffee with caramel are delicious, she will fight you), firewhiskey, rain, kittens, dragons, magic

| dislikes: rude people (there's a difference between being full of yourself and having manners), Hogwarts magic interfering with her muggle shít, her housemates making fun of her muggle shít (like, excuse me, but can your old af radio playing all 1000+ Eurovision songs at any time of day? That's what I thought), "woman" being used as an insult (she is a woman, and better than you, so fúck off), bertie botts every flavour bean (it's the "every" flavour that repulses her), idioticy, unearned elitism (if you wanna act superior, fine, but at least have something that makes you superior, and blood is not one of those things), Cornwall, camomile tea (it's disgusting), corduroy, roses, her things being moved

| hobbies: reading, learning, football, just hanging out with her friends (forcing them to watch Eurovision)

| habits: - eye rolling (so much eye rolling) - tends to tune out her entire environment when she's in "the zone" (no longer walks and reads because she has run into and fallen off of stuff) - twirls her hair with her wand when she's thinking (like how we use fingers) - Swears a lot - hums Eurovision songs around 90% of the time

| talents: - multilingual (English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, and Danish) - magic (she has yet to encounter a form of magic she does not immediately excel at) - memory (it's not really eidetic or photographic, because it's not instant, but after 3 reads of a thing, she can rattle off the whole thing word for word) - making references (that's a talent right? Because otherwise, I am screwed) - emotional manipulation/acting (works best on people that don't know her, she can still manipulate other people, but it takes a little more effort and time) - obsessing (again, totally a talent right because otherwise I have literally no skills)

| boggart: her mother

| amortentia smells: fresh coffee (though the taste disgusts her, hence she pumps caramel into her ice coffee), newly laundered clothes, and petrichor (the scent of wet earth after a recent rain fall)

☆──════♦family and such♦════──☆

| Petter Albrecht Alvar Sauvageon Father || FC: Colin Firth Svea was very close to her father, and inherited his love of the muggle world. Her fondest memory is attending a Eurovision Song Contest Grand finale with him as a child before being forced to move to Britain. Petter was a rather Swedish fellow, charming, pretty, very liberal, socialist, feminist. When Svea was 13, and Lili 8, he disappeared whilst he, some colleagues and magical law enforcement were hunting a dragon dealer by the Sea of Azov. He attended Durmstrang and did not like it there. Svea and Lili called him "Papa".

| Diana Elizabeth Charlotte Prince Mother || FC: Rachel Weisz Svea and her mother have a ... complicated to say the least. Well, to be honest, Svea doesn't like her very much and they do not get along. Svea dislikes her maternal family, personality-wise, she is similar to them, she's an elitist arsehole just like them, but feels they do not have the merits to walk around like they own England. When Svea was first born, Diana simply preferred to believe she didn't exist, and considers her a mistake, though as the 10th anniversary of her mistake approached, her father convinced her to bring the child to Britain to attend Hogwarts as no blood of his would attend an inferior, foreign school. Diana is a traditional pureblood, and makes clear her deep resentment and disappointment of Svea for being a blood traitor. Despite their dislike of each other, however, the mother and daughter are rather alike, both being ambitious, high-achieving type-a people. Although they maintain a strict distance from each other, her mother's opinion and lack of maternal love does bother Svea, though she stubborn refuses to talk about it and tends to shove those feelings between 60 layers of anger and bitterness. Svea calls her "Mother" with about 397 layers of salt and sarcasm in her tone.

:: Sauvageon Family ::

The Sauvageon's are a very family old wizarding family, they were originally French, and later immigrated to Sweden in the late 1700's. Unlike most ancient wizarding families (particularly the British ones), they have never shied away from breeding with muggles and muggleborns, often gaining the label of "blood traitor" from the British families, but they're Swedish, and blood density is irrelevant there. There are as liberal and socialist as their country. Despite being loathed by the blood purist-type families, they are still approached very few generations for marital matches, as they are exceedingly wealthy and when the aforementioned house runs out of options.

| Ludvig Danel Freyr Sauvageon Paternal Grandfather || FC: Sir Patrick Stewart Cutie patootie grandpa, called Grandpapa by Svea and Lili, he's super dorky and a massive nerd, easily amused and genuinely a happy fellow. His anger, said to be rare, is apparently a sight to behold.

| Linnéa Nathalie Petra Sauvageon née Magnusdotter Paternal Grandmother || FC: Dame Judi Dench Boss as.s b.tch aka Grandmama, she's generally the person in charge. Super class and elegant af, commanding, witty, and super awesome. One of Svea's role models and basically # life goals.

| Brigitta Camilla Vanja Sauvageon Paternal Aunt || FC: Gillian Anderson Classy, straightforward, elegant, and badas.s, has an unclear high-ranking role in the Swedish Ministry of Magic.

| Kåre Lukas Alexander Sauvageon Paternal Uncle || FC: James D'Arcy Pretencious, but fundamentally good hearted. He's an art collector, of both muggle and magical artists.

| Iliana Vyacheslavovichna Drubetskaya Step-mother || FC: Lena Headey Svea gets along rather well with her step-mother, and admires her quite a bit. Iliana and her father married when Svea was 4, so she's known her for quite a while, and share a rather maternal bond. She was also the person who taught Svea Russian and the two used it to tease and joke about her father in front him (because he couldn't speak it). She played for the national Russian Quidditch team, but retired 10 years ago because of injury. She now writes about Quidditch matches and players in a sports column for the local Swedish Wizarding Paper, and occasionally does commentary.

| Lena "Lili" Petterovna Sauvageon Younger Half-sister || FC: Dafne Keen Just began her second year at Koldovstoretz, the Russian Wizarding school. She's precious and adoring, and like a tiny Svea, though much nicer and less elitist, and sends Svea a letter by owl nearly daily (receiving one in return at the same consistency). They write their letters in Swedish since it's unlikely for any of their fellow students to be able to read them. They're super attached and close, and adorable af!

:: Prince Family ::

An old English, pure-blood wizarding family, they are fervent purportors of the concept of blood supremacy and purity, and proud Slytherins. Having all been sorted into the House dating back to Salazar Slytherin himself (or so they claim). Due to centuries of inbreeding with other pureblood families (who are all cousins at this point), the Princes tend to have the following traits; violent tendencies, mental instability, and some are enfeebled (though the family goes to great lengths to hide and eliminate such members). Additionally, due to their close genetics, the family additionally has trouble conceiving, generally ending up with only one child born per generation.

| Marcius Titus Polaris Prince Maternal Grandfather || FC: Sir Michael Caine Svea does not like her grandfather in the least, nor does he particularly like her, they define incompatibility between generations. She's considers him a relic of a dying time, and he considers her an uppity, idiotic child not worthy to have a drop of his blood running her veins.

:: other ::

| Lara Coburg Muggle Childhood Best Friend || FC: Holliday Grainger A muggle Svea met when enrolled in muggle schools as a child, and thick as thieves, regularly write to each other (though Lara asks the Sauvageon's to send her letters to Svea, and Svea has her owl send them to the family estate instead of Lara's home), and hang out whenever they can. She's aware of the magical world, and has been sworn to secrecy by the magical and non-magical Swedish governments (which was cool 'cause she got to meet the then PM - the muggle one).

☆──════♦biography♦════──☆

Svea is half-Swedish, half-British, her father was Swedish wizard and renown dragonologist; Petter Sauvageon, her mother; Diana Prince, is an accomplished and revered employee at the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Her parent's never married, her being the result of a liaison, which the Swedish part of her family couldn't give less of a fck about, but the British half are extremely embarrassed by. She was born in semi-secrecy, the Prince's very much wanted to pretend she did not exist, and tried to hide Diana's pregnancy in England, claiming she was taking a long earned, and extensive year long holiday abroad. The Sauvageon's, however, did not give a sht, and happily excitedly told their friends about their first grandchild (but they kept the identity of the mother a secret because they're not arseholes, and found her constant reminders to be a nuisance). She was born in the Sauvageon Estate in Enköping (estate is a really nice way of saying small castle, really), and remained in Sweden until she was 10, as the Prince's willingly and happily gave up custody of her.

From the age of 2-5, Svea was enrolled in Förskola and when aged 6, she attended Förskoleklass, school for muggle children in Sweden (both are optional for Swedish kids, "Förskola" is preschool, available to children from ages 1-5, and "Förskoleklass" is preschool class, which I guess is effectively a year of kindergarten, for children aged 6). She made numerous muggle friends, including her lifelong childhood best friend, Lara Coburg, to whom she still regularly writes, and visits when back in Sweden, and to whom she revealed her magic. She attended 4 years of the muggle compulsory school in Sweden (which is for ages 7-16, and basically the north American equivalent of elementary through to high school), with the plan being that she would "transfer" to private, boarding school once she reached the age for magical schooling. However, when she was 10, her mother and maternal grandfather came to Sweden to claim custody and make her a British citizen, to meet the residential requirements to attend Hogwarts. The Sauvageon's initially refused, but as they loathe their local home school, Drumstrang (a very non-Swedish Scandinavian school, because Sweden is liberal af and Drumstrang is magic racist af), they agreed.

Svea spent a year living with her mother and maternal grandfather before being admitted into Hogwarts and did not like it in the least. They were horrified and appalled by the rambunctious, muggle-friendly, aggressively European child she was (and tbh, still is), and spent the year trying to force it out of her. They kept her isolated and cut off all her connections to her father's family, and tried to instruct her in the ways of pureblood, often screaming in frustration and anger when she argued back or simply replied with "so what" or "why". They later took to locking her in rooms, and starving her when she started leaving the estate on her own to mingle with the local muggle population. Eventually, their little war came to a head when they broke her electrical toys from her father's family, and in her fury, she magically set fire to the Prince Estate (on purpose, though they claimed it was an accident to the Improper Use of Magic Office). The fire resembled the Fiendfyre curse, and it was stronger than any fire Svea had produced before. Although no one died, the entire estate became ruins, and took 4 ministry workers plus her mother and grandfather to contain. After the incident, Svea was able to reconnect with her paternal family (crying to the ministry people there about missing her father and worried that her grandfather would say no because he's jealous of her other grandfather, yes she was faking her tears, anyway, they fell for it and informed her Swedish fam who immediately apparated to the Prince Estate). The Sauvageon's offered to pay for the restoration of the Prince Estate, but in exchange, Brigitta Sauvageon would be staying with them until Svea left for Hogwarts. Once that was settled, Svea and her maternal family became akin to strangers living in the same house, with Marcius Prince calling Svea and her aunt "unwelcome guests".

Svea excelled at Hogwarts from the get go, she ran into some trouble with blood purists in her house, but due to her indifferences to the opinions of others for whom she has no respect, and long list of accomplishments, bullying hasn't really been an issue for her, she's really far too confident for bullying to even work though, like what would they say?

Would-be bully: you're ugly. Svea: b!tch, have you seen me?

Would-be bully: your blood is impure and polluted by the filth of muggles Svea: yeah, and so is yours, it's called species propagation.

Would-be bully: you're a worthless blood traitor Svea: *points at all her awards and grades*

Anyway, she's active in school events, has too much pride for school and her house, (also Sweden) and SLYTHERIN IS SO WINNING THAT HOUSE CUP THIS YEAR MOTHERFCKERS!!!

☆──════♦other♦════──☆

‣ her name is poorly made pun, like, "pun" is actually pushing it. "Svea" comes from a personification of Sweden, a derivative of "Svear", the Swedish name for the ancient Germanic tribe; the Swedes. "Svear" also later evolved into "Sverige", the Swedish name for Sweden and means "the realm of the Svear". Her surname, "Sauvageon", is a French form of "Savage", an English word, nickname, and surname meaning wild and uncouth, which was derived from a Middle English form of Old French; "salvage" or "sauvage", which meant untamed. Effectively, her name means Savage Swede, the flip around being a ref to the annoying flip around in the French language with certain terms and/or phrases (also in other languages, but French is the one I got beef with as a Canadian person). Richelle and Estelle are just because I like frenchy names that rhyme, and they're vaguely posh sounding, so I'm assuming her mother picked those ones. I say, assume, I made these characters, she did pick them for Svea.

‣ She could've been a Ravenclaw, but her ambition heavily outweighs her thirst for knowledge

‣ Her muggle electronic devices somewhat function at Hogwarts, working around the magical interferences by having them be powered by magic (so her laptop, phone, etc now never die, and are partially magic, decreasing the interference from all the magic around the castle), however, she is still trying to receive satellite/etc signals which don't work in the school, and she's forced to keep those features off because otherwise her screen goes all wonky. Hurray for having downloaded everything though. Enjoy X-Files and Eurovision Slytherin House. XD

‣ uses a ridiculous array of glitter and nerd-design pens (ink and quills are aesthetically pleasing, but impractical. Come on, the pencil was invented in fcking 1564)

‣ obtained her appariting license earlier than would be possible (because birthday makes her 17 after the usual UK test dates) by applying for it at the Swedish Ministry of magic, which issues Apparition licenses at 16 (completely made that up, but whatever, I don't like half of the few things we know about JKR's Sweden, they're not very Swedish. How is Drumstrang a Scandi school? Scandi's are so liberal, I get it's a German, wwii stereotype, but make it limited to German and Germanic states then, the Scandi's are liberal af. Well, Sweden is, also I think Finland, and probably Denmark).

☆──════♦plotting ideas and notes♦════──☆

[I'll add more as I think of them]

I. She's extremely competitive with Ravenclaw's and loathes that they have the label of being the "smart house", since her house is just as intelligent, and she considers herself above them. Her arrogance and elitist attitude come out at their highest when she's arguing with a Ravenclaw.

II. Your carer; possibly limited to Slytherin house, but she cares so you don't have to. Although, that caring is also limited, there's only so many people she can care about. Everyone doesn't deserve it.

III. Her relationship with Slytherins may be a bit complex depending on where your OC stands on blood purity. Svea's an elitist, yes, but she's not a blood purist, and has plenty of muggle-born and muggle friends, her own mother has labeled her as a "blood traitor", so if you're of the "pure bloods are the bestest, kill everyone else", you may run into some problems.

IV.

☆──════♦plotting♦════──☆

--Slytherin--

↪ Damien Greaves | @.natasha-maree13 House: Slytherin FC: Matthew Daddario Info: One of Svea's best friends, despite his psychopathy. She's able to easily discern between when he's messing around, and when he's being genuine. Both being high-achieving, superiority-complex ridden as.sholes with a shared fondness for certain muggle things, they get along fantastically, despite one of them lacking the major spectrum of human emotions. They have their own little clique, The Slytherin Silver Trio, and it's better than yours will ever be. XP ---> side character plotting: Lyra Greaves ------{FC: Alexandra Daddario, House: Slytherin} -----tbf

↪ Eloise Avery | @.themadmonarchist House: Slytherin FC: Abbey Lee Kershaw Info: Evolved into buddy-buddy friends more recently, and are Eurovision besties! Okay, they have like a close bond and other proper friendship stuff that I'm gonna ramble about, but, clearly, EUROVISION IS THE BEST AND MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER!!! Okay, I'm chill now, mostly. They first met as children, when Svea's family were trying to teach her the "enlightened" ways of pureblood-ism, didn't go well, the Avery's had their precious heir exposed to glitter muggle music for the first time. At Hogwarts, they didn't particularly get along in the beginning, due to Eloise's connection with the dou.che crew (as I call them, basically Blood Purist Bullies), however, they are quite similar later bonding during o.w.l.s and post-Eloise leaving dou.che crew over their similar pasts, passion for muggle stuff, and needing to outstanding on everything. Sliver Trio member numero trois!

↪ Octavia Thygeson | @.melophilia-c House: Slytherin FC: Natalia Dyer Info: Despite Svea's general elitist attitude, they along quite well, Svea showing the newbie around Hogwarts and such, and later bond over their close ties to members of Gryffindor House, who are generally seen as the enemy in Slytherin. ---> side character plotting: Mason Thygeson ------{FC: Hugh Dancy, House: Gryffindor} ------Become friends through Octavia, apparently her "spunk" reminds him of sister. Also friends through Henry. Also, also, Svea aggressively ships him with her bestie, Syn. Ship shop and all.

↪ Loralei Expura | @.thespian-at-large House: Slytherin FC: Dove Cameron Info: Like a little sister to her, Svea is very protective of Loralei, who is prone to being bullied for not being a pureblood in their house. She also convinced Loralei to join the Slytherin Quidditch team, and ensures Loralei takes her pills by enchanting her belongings to constantly remind her until she takes them.

↪ Leida Nelms | @.stackmel House: Slytherin FC: Ashley Benson Info: Friends, more or less. Certainly some American digs on Svea's part, but generally get along being teammates and housemates.

↪ Chanel Black | @.daily-donuts House: Slytherin FC: Ruby McCarthy Info: Svea and Chanel despise one another. The only exception is on the quidditch pitch where they are forced to work together. Chanel saw Svea as the edgy cool girl, but Svea just saw Chanel as an obnoxious immature teen. To be fair, she attempted to be polite with the girl which misled Chanel into believing they were friends because of her bubbly personality. Unfortunately, Svea told her the truth whenever she noticed the teen hanging out with her more and more. Chanel’s hurt grew to her being insecure about herself and a passionate hate to Svea. They compete in quidditch every practice and they both attempt to one up the other. Chanel secretly wants to still be friends with Svea but she knows that will never happen. Even though they are so similar, Svea’s coolness was too much for them to have a positive relationship.* *written by @.daily-donuts

↪ Moses Park Jr. | @.koby House: Slytherin FC: Kim Woo Bin Info: They've been friends since first year, as Svea does not care about blood purity and bonded over their shared love for the muggle sport of football (but Arsenal is better than West Ham)! She's also one his tutors.

↪ oc name | @ oc owner House: FC: Info:

--Hufflepuff--

↪ Syn Lothbrok | @ghostpastey House: Hufflepuff FC: Zippora Seven Info: SlytherPuff BFFs aka the Scandi's/Scandinavians, they're childhood friends, both being from wealthy influential families in Scandinavia, and they're a solid salty/aggressive duo at Hogwarts, with a penchant for snarky lines and exploding potions *cough* Syn totally makes them explode no matter how closely the instructions were followed *cough*.

↪ Isabel Sanchez | @.polystar10 House: Hufflepuff FC: Ana De armas Info: Sort of friends, they initially interact through Svea's bestie (Damien) messing around and manipulating poor Isabel, Svea never really interfering unless it goes way too far, and even then, it's really only take down a few notches. Their interactions increase due to Isabel's close relationship with Svea's boyfriend (urg, what a lame word, paramour, through her paramour), and end up hanging out more.

↪ Lyrae Mino | @.skyfalll House: Hufflepuff FC: Taissa Farmiga Info: Share a friendly rivalry, but get along well, and have a mutual love of the stars (astronomy).

↪ oc name | @ oc owner House: FC: Info:

--Gryffindor--

↪ Henry Clark | @.lady-stoneheart House: Gryffindor FC: Ben Barnes Info: SlytherDor power couple, began dating in their 6th year, bonding over their shared love of muggle sports team; Arsenal FC. Generally speaking, they've always got along, Svea has always been against the stupidity of blood purity, which many of her Housemates buy into, and which Henry abhors, however, she has bully friends, and is somewhat complicit in their behaviour since she doesn't really step in unless it's the aforementioned friend is being stupid (aka going "mudblood"), or is going too far, so they have been on opposite sides of (metaphorical) battles numerous times. They're also extremely competitive with each other, mostly arising from their Quidditch teams (the ones they play on and support), as well as Svea's general refusal to ever lose. ---> side character plotting: Xander Carlyle ------{FC: Jacob Tremblay, House: Gryffindor} ------share a sibling like relationship, having bonded closely over the holidays, with Xander immediately running to Svea for help with homework and all other problems, inciting a small amount of sibling-like jealousy in Henry (Henry, at some point: he's my sort of brother, get your own).

↪ Isadora Franks | @.agentdanascully House: Gryffindor FC: Lily James Info: Share a friendly rivalry, initially instigated by Isadora. Generally politely competitive, though they've had nicer moments, mainly due to mutual hatred for blood elitists, though Svea unintentionally makes Isadora feel insecure around her, plus stubborness gets in the way of a deeper friendship.

↪ oc name | @ oc owner House: FC: Info:

--Ravenclaw--

↪ Kenton Prewett | @.miky94 House: Ravenclaw FC: Dylan Sprayberry Info: They are acquaintances that run into each other during events and on campus, but nothing more.

↪ Minah Delacroix | @.maybones House: Ravenclaw FC: Kim Doyeon Info: tbf ---> side character plotting: Tyler Lee ------{FC: Jeon Jungkook, House: Slytherin} ------tbf

↪ oc name | @ oc owner House: FC: Info:

☆──group members──☆ Gryffindor: @/know-my-value || @/short-infinities || @.lady-stoneheart || @/snazzy-k33 || @/juliefel || @/novitious || @/forver-young0001 || @/fandomgirlofficial || @/crythin || @/ekaterina33-01 Hufflepuff: @/followyourbliss || @.ghostpastey || @/iristaha || @.skyfalll || @.polystar10 || @/hxmiltrxsh || @/violetrose74 || @/moon-child-dreams || @/me-myself-and-survival || @/dashingpirate Slytherin: @.drownedinmoonlight || @/lightyears-away || @.themadmonarchist || @.natasha-maree13 || @.melophilia-c || @.koby || @.thespian-at-large || @.stackmel || @.daily-donuts || @.little-miss-sociopath Ravenclaw: @/buffykdh || @/monkeymanda22 || @/maybones || @/the-fault-in-our-paper-towns || @/general-sux || @/fandom-fashion || @/chrissykinz || @/hear-my-plea || @/oohlalyla ||

#polyvore #squarezy layout #mine #svea sauvageon #plotting #hsww

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thisisheavynews · 5 years

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ROMEO AND JULIET Featuring Indie Rock Band The Family Crest

The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective are happy to current the Chicago premiere of ROMEO AND JULIET: A Spectacular Retelling of The World’s Greatest Love Story, Shakespeare’s timeless story cinematically reimagined utilizing stay music carried out by indie rock darlings and NPR music favorites The Family Crest, whose distinctive and sweeping orchestral sound completely scores essentially the most well-known love story ever advised.

The solid consists of Alex Quiñones (Romeo), Halie Robinson (Juliet), Bailey Savage (Benvolio), Kade Cox(Mercutio), Dan Lin (Tybalt), Susan Fay (Nurse), Jess Ford (Friar Laurence), Terence Sims (Capulet), Ashlea Woodley (Lady Capulet), Gaby Labotka (Prince), Julie Brannen (Dancer), De’jah Jervai (Lady Montague, Dancer), Michael Gee (Montague, Dancer) and Manisha Mahaldar (Dancer).

Directed by Sam Bianchini with choreography by Julie Brannen, this progressive mixture of actors, dancers and stay music by The Family Crest will play a restricted three-show engagement from November 7 – 9, 2019 on The Den Theatre’s Heath Main Stage, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago. Tickets are at the moment accessible at www.thedentheatre.com, in particular person on the The Den field workplace or by calling (773) 697-3830.

Somewhere between a rock live performance and a basic Shakespearean play, ROMEO AND JULIET finds new life by enigmatic staging, partaking choreography and an emotionally expressive soundtrack. Treated as get together friends, the viewers is dropped into the center of this sensational epic in an immersive evening that seems like a music video come to life.

The night options favourite hits from The Family Crest, (a few of which may be heard of their iconic Tiny Desk live performance), mixed with never-before-heard tracks from their upcoming album, The War: Act II, which debuts in 2020. The grandiose, symphonic sounds of those classically educated musicians gives the inspiring soundtrack to the acquainted story and paints the image prefer it’s by no means been seen earlier than.

The collaboration between The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective creates an excellent recipe for a particular occasion. They welcome you to hitch this unforgettable expertise.

Pictured: Kade Cox (Mercutio) in a publicity picture for The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective’s world premiere of ROMEO AND JULIET: A Spectacular Retelling of The World’s Greatest Love Story. of Photo by Audrey Palumbo.

The manufacturing staff up to now consists of Emily Smith (scenic design), Alon Slotter (lighting design), Gaby Labotka (battle choreography) and Amanda Jean Grissom (stage supervisor).

PRODUCTION DETAILS:

Dates: Thursday, November 7, Friday, November eight and Saturday, November 9

Times: Doors open at 9 pm; present at 10pm

Tickets: $33. A restricted variety of VIP tickets can be found for $60 (VIP Tickets embrace premium mezzanine desk seats, a digital album of The Family Crest music from the present, together with three new tracks off the not-yet-released TheWar Part II, and a signed collectible poster). Tickets are at the moment accessible at www.thedentheatre.com, in particular person on the The Den field workplace or by calling (773) 697-3830.

Pictured: (left to proper) Ashlea Woodley (Lady Capulet) and Terence Sims (Capulet) in a publicity picture for The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective’s world premiere of ROMEO AND JULIET: A Spectacular

About The Artists

The Family Crest (Music) The brainchild of composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Liam McCormick, orchestral indie rock band The Family Crest was began as a recording undertaking in 2009 with co-founder John Seeterlin (bass) as a last launch earlier than bowing out of the business. Instead of leaving music, they had been impressed by their friends to got down to reinvent how a band could possibly be created, beginning The Family Crest with an audacious and daring imaginative and prescient of cultivating a musical group. “We always liked making music with people – getting a bunch of people together and singing. So we put ads everywhere,” says McCormick. “We posted on Craigslist, distributed flyers, and emailed old friends from school.” The consequence was higher than the unique duo imagined, with over 80 folks credited on their first recording and over 500 musicians credited all through their catalog.

Beyond the core band of McCormick and Seeterlin, Anthony Franceschi (drums), Laura Bergmann (flute, piano, percussion, vocals), Owen Sutter (violin) and George Samaan (trombone), over 500 “Extended Family” members take part on recordings, stay reveals and throughout the creative spectrum. Known for his or her jaw-dropping stay performances, The Family Crest has toured extensively domestically and internationally, garnering the assist of followers and the press alike. Bob Boilen of NPR’s “All Songs Considered” mentioned of The Family Crest, “Seeing is believing. Liam McCormick is a knockout singer, you simply must hear him live… There’s a decent chance you’re about to discover your favorite new band.”

The Family Crest has launched three full-length albums and three EPs, together with their critically-acclaimed breakout Beneath the Brine, which SPIN journal known as, “…a masterfully arranged epic… sharp strings, galloping percussion, and an ambition wide enough to swallow you whole.” Most lately, the band has been releasing items of their present musical idea album collection, The War. “The War represents the next version of The Family Crest,” says McCormick, and certainly, the album reveals a band extra in tune with its personal large-scale Baroque eclecticism. Jim Vorel of Paste Magazine described their first providing, The War: Prelude to War, as “A sound so big, it feels like it could collapse in on itself at any moment to form a black hole… One thing is certain: These guys are just as explosive as ever, and these songs are going to bring the house down in a live setting.” The War: Act I, the second installment within the idea collection led to comparable sentiments as EARMILK said, “The Family Crest deliver complex arrangements with such confidence that each varying sound produced is done with effortless intent and is never perceived as an afterthought… a stunning explosion of color and emotion and just another reason why I’m continually captivated by this group.” They are at the moment slated to launch the following chapter within the collection, The War: Act II in 2020.

Sam Bianchini (Director) is a director, actress, author and producer who has labored in LA, NYC and Chicago on each the stage and display. She started her skilled profession within the storefront Chicago theatre scene at 17, whereas acquiring her BFA in Acting from Roosevelt University’s CCPA, which formed her creative voice and provocative, clever and heartrending fashion. She went on to obtain her MFA in Acting from UCLA. Since then, Sam has been writing, appearing and producing immersive and awe-inspiring items of theatre and movie. A meticulous eye, consideration to rhythm, and musicality of emotion are essential staples of her distinctive route. Recently relocating residence to Chicago, Bianchini’s achieved voice and daring imaginative and prescient carry recent concepts and electrifying storytelling to the Chicago Theatre scene. Select West Coast credit: Romeo and Juliet (LA and SF), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cherry Orchard, Down within the Face of God and Talking Blues (director). Select Chicago Credits: An Ideal Husband, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, The Nebraska Project, My Name is Rachel Corrie (director) and Mad Like Us (director). TV/Film: Chicago Fire, The Next Big Thing (movie), Lost Angeles (author). www.sambianchini.com

Pictured: Dan Lin (Tybalt) in a publicity picture for The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective’s world premiere of ROMEO AND JULIET: A Spectacular Retelling of The World’s Greatest Love Story. of Photo by Audrey Palumbo.

About The Companies

Artistic Director Ryan Martin opened The Den Theatre in 2010 with a single theatre area. Seven years later, The Den boasts 5 intimate and distinctive theaters on two flooring starting from 50 – 200 seats, in addition to two further areas primarily used for courses and rehearsals. The Den can be outfitted with two bars enveloped by a endless discipline of lounge area for audiences and like-minded tradition hounds to drink, speak, learn, watch, assume, pay attention and stay. The Den is residence to 5 resident theatre firms together with First Floor Theater, Haven Theatre Company, The New Colony, Broken Nose Theatre and Firebrand Theatre. Hundreds of different firms from Chicago and past have additionally known as The Den residence, using its theaters, studio area and simply convertible cabaret area to accommodate a stream of programming, together with performs, musicals, movie screenings, classical and jazz performances, dance, improv and stand-up, seminars and talking engagements. For further data, go to www.thedentheatre.com.

Jacaranda Collective is a multi-media manufacturing firm shaped upon the precept of making artwork to discover each the battle and the great thing about existence, with out claiming one Truth. Just because the Moon isn’t seen in full, we acknowledge and rejoice all phases of Life, whereas permitting the viewers a secure area to navigate their very own private panorama. At Jacaranda, we aspire to encourage your perception in magic, and your potential to create it.

Jacaranda Collective burst onto the Chicago theatre scene earlier this spring with their knockout manufacturing of My Name is Rachel Corrie, produced at The Den Theatre. The firm arrives as a passionate and provocative addition to Chicago’s storefront phases. Spearheaded by creative director Sam Bianchini and affiliate creative director Halie Robinson, Jacaranda combines huge, energetic imaginative and prescient and placing storytelling with precision and care. Bianchini and Robinson got down to make theatre that could be a present to the viewers. For further data, go to www.jacarandacollective.com.

Pictured: Bailey Savage (Benvolio) in a publicity picture for The Family Crest, The Den Theatre and Jacaranda Collective’s world premiere of ROMEO AND JULIET: A Spectacular Retelling of The World’s Greatest Love Story. of Photo by Audrey Palumbo.

from Heavy News https://thisisheavynews.com/romeo-and-juliet-featuring-indie-rock-band-the-family-crest/

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getseriouser · 5 years

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20 THOUGHTS: Trade Radio Ga Ga (’is this real life or just a fantasy?’)

WHAT a stupid year.

The losers of the NRL Grand Final are paid out as winners by bookmakers, and not because of a silly betting promotion but because the code and its officials are as relevant and effective in their jobs as contraception to Irish catholic newlyweds on their honeymoon.

Where Donald Trump himself is evidence our species might now be regressing, the fact endless hours of Trade Radio always have talkback callers is the proof in that devolution pudding.

And in a year where all the conservatives and right-wingers in this country should be as excited as a Beagle on full lipstick following ScoMo’s Steven Bradbury effort in May, they’re got their pantyhose and pressed slacks in a twist because of what some Volvo factory-worker’s teenage daughter has to say about the inclement weather conditions.

There was chaos and anarchy on Swan Street for the second time in three years last month but Hold Kong locals asked Richmond fans if they could hold their beer. We lost Polly and Spud, and said vale, gone too soon, to Saturday Night Rove. Five clubs let go of their coaches, Pope Francis delisted one of his cardinals, and a ginger from Christchurch defeated his own country by the virtue of most boundaries.

But at least we retained the Ashes in England.

1. Let’s start with the footy, trades season is almost done. Hutchy to his credit was a genius for seeing revenue opportunity in this trade period, with an ‘insert sponsor here’ open line and hours and hours of coverage, its been a windfall and then some for his business. But I reckon we’re only a year or so away from the unwashed realising there’s no relevance in any of it until the final day. There’s only so many Terry Wallace orations on the merits of list analysis before your average punter switches off. Know when to hold them, know when to fold them, Craig.

2. The biggest name out there with a day to go is Joe Daniher. Was that meeting with Tom Harley a personal one or an actual, official Swans’ approach? Soft tacos, hard tacos, why not both? Now we have Essendon playing hardball and who knows if it gets done. Chances are it does, Geelong last year with Tim Kelly was more exception than example, if the Swans want him bad enough, they’ll lump up the pieces, especially if they fear as I do that Bud’s barely got ten more games in him in a market that requires a star.

3. St Kilda has a lot on. Jack Steven and Josh Bruce are two big losses, but getting in Dougal Howard, Bradley Hill, Zak Jones, Paddy Ryder and Dan Butler are some nice pieces. If Ratten can indeed coach, and as an ex-Clarko assistant he should be just fine, next year looks properly solid down at Moorabbin.

4. Whats the thinking with the Dogs? Aaron Naughton looks like a key forward gun, and Josh Schache was just starting to show something as a footballer without being a star. Yet they’re throwing all the cash at Josh Bruce for a go at a third flag? I do know he was free to a good home because the Saints were hellbent Max King’s twin at the Gold Coast would head home next year – not now after that re-signing yesterday. Couple big mistakes there for mine.

5. Tom Papley worth pick nine? Righto. And the Masked Singer will be popular on Australian television too, right?..... Yep, pick nine sounds about right then, forgive me.

6. Jack Martin though, to Carlton, that’s the steal of the whole thing. Martin is a freak, who has gone underappreciated playing in the ghost town that is Gold Coast, for a horribly weak side, in a club that can’t develop anyone not named Tom Lynch. But has talent to burn and could easily become one of Carlton’s top 10 players next year, in fact based on the player he can become, he should. Think 2019 Michael Walters. Seriously. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

7. Collingwood have cap issues? Really? Firstly who really knows, unlike North American sports where contracts are public, only each club really knows how much room they’ve got and how that ever would be divulged puzzles me. And yes they have to pay Grundy, De Goey and Moore next year, although the latter won’t be all that much given his hamstrings are like an Uber driver with turrets, unreliable and could snap at any time. But given the Pies were offering Tom Lynch the same financial terms as Richmond this time last year, with Scott Pendlebury out of contract next year and coming down in salary, with less stars to pay than West Coast, how is this a thing? It isn’t. Chris Mayne is overpaid, sure, but that’s it. Wells has retired, Beams took a cut, and unless George Calombaris oversaw their player payments and there’s backpay to cover off, I think it’s a total beat-up. But sure, let James Aish being wanted by his former backs coach at Freo to fuel that fable.

8. Crows hired Matthew Nicks. Reckon that’s got fail all over it. Adelaide’s list is in a heap, the review basically said their post Grand-Final plans two years ago totally wiped the place out like a broken toilet on a buck’s weekend, and not seeing to the damage since has only exacerbated the crap spilling out all over the shop. Good half dozen or so quality players leaving this offseason, Walker and Sloane are the wrong side of 30 and they’ve got only a few good kids, most clubs around them have better youth and are more rapidly improving. Either Nicks can’t coach at the level or he can but the Crows will be a bad side regardless, either way it doesn’t see him making a new contract beyond whats given out today.

9. NRL. Definiton of a pub league. Your local Wednesday night basketball is better run. And with better officiating. That Six Again controversy was the most befitting thing you’ll ever see to a sport, a sport where 13 of its 16 clubs run insolvent, but that’s ok because all their giant pokies-infested leagues club venues write them all a cheque to cover the losses each year. Absolute pub league.

10. If an umpire or referee makes a bad call, it’s only made worse by changing that decision midstream. If a player marks the ball, but then the umpire overrules saying no, it was touched, its no mark, and because you’ve claimed it and made no attempt to get rid of it its now holding the ball, you just can’t do that. Kids are taught to play to the whistle. Except in rugby league then. Because chances are what the ref just said isn’t what he is about to mean in a couple seconds time, just be patient. That referee shouldn’t be crucified for what’s essentially just one error, but in the grand scheme of things, he needs witness protection. Or better yet, stay off the roster for trips to Canberra next season.

11. It was mentioned in the preamble but no wonder SportsBet paid out all Canberra to win bets. The Raiders had all the momentum, it was 8-all, and it was near the Roosters tryline. They were no guarantee to score off that play, at best they might have got a repeat set. But if there was anyone more likely to break that deadlock given who was playing better but also, more importantly, the territory battle, it was the Green Machine. This isn’t SportsBet just being philanthropic, the result is just that shady.

12. Speaking of Sportsbet – Western United. Made their A-League debut on the weekend, won one-nil in front of some fans at Wellington. But it was midweek that we saw their announcement which said “we are proud to announce SportsBet has joined the club as its exclusive sports wagering partner”. Firstly, poor form, in a city where all the AFL clubs are quite publicly backing out of gambling revenue, to be going the other way stinks big time. But secondly, what does that even mean? That if I go into a TAB all Western United games are unavailable to bet on. Coz that’s just not even close to true. Dumb and stupid in all of the ways, that.

13. So the new boys have their home opener this weekend down at Geelong, even though they’re a team based out of Tarneit. Melbourne Victory when they’ve ventured down to Sleepy Hollow attract 14,000 or so, who knows how many turn up for the novelty first time around this Saturday. But going forward, given Melbourne City don’t exceed 10,000 and they play in town, if they’re getting anymore than 5,000-6,000 in what’s otherwise a 36,000 AFL venue, its going to look oh so pretty on television. What’s the opposite of the eggplant emoji?

14. Few more on the A-League, firstly, why have your opening round smack bang in the middle of an international window? They were so hyper vigilant to schedule their opening round after the AFL and NRL had ended they failed to recognise all of the good Aussie players will be off winning 28-nil against Chinese Taipei or Christmas Island or whoever it was. Its like Victoria Police planning a social function on New Year’s Eve. No-one’s going to be able to make it you morons.

15. And you open up with the Melbourne Derby. Lucky Victory is a terrifically run club with a strong, loyal fanbase. But only 33,000, with zero promotion? These should be nudging 50,000.

16. Lastly, you know they’re going really well when the free-to-air partner this season is the ABC. Even the VFL got a commercial broadcaster, yet the country’s premier round ball competition shares a channel with Gardening Australia and Four Corners. And the cherry on the top is when it comes to finals, and I’ll quote the ABC press release on this one, where “one A-League match per round broadcast live on ABC TV and iView around the country… and a selection of A-League finals on delay, including the grand final.” Delay?! Remember those days? You can’t make this stuff up.

17. Darren Weir got done for using jiggers. Rest of racing stays dead quiet. Right. Now is that because Darren is their mate and despite the heinous crimes blood is thicker than water in the industry and they have some empathy for him? Or is it a case of if he can get caught, then maybe some of the others equally as guilty could so easily as well, and staying mum is step one of avoiding such scrutiny? I wonder.

18. So, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge broke the two-hour barrier for running a marathon. Phenomenal achievement, just ridiculous to even comprehend the feat. Amazing. But it won’t count as a world record. Why? Well it wasn’t a race. Old mate contrived the event with a couple dozen pacers to help him do it and that’s it. It’s like if me and some mates hire lane eight down Altona Pool Thursday morning, and fresh off a high-protein breakfast and a quick hit of flakka happen to break 20 seconds for one-lap of freestyle – you think FINA will recognise it? You think Kieran Perkins will shout me free Light Start for life off the back of it? As a milk crusader I could only dream of such a reward but yeah nah. Nice stunt Eliud, you’re a freak of a human. But we’re in the same boat brother.

19. Tough one, not just for boxing because its bigger than that, but Patrick Day is in real bother and sincere optimism about his recovery to one side, so is his sport. Day was knocked out in the tenth round in a bout with Charles Conwell in Chicago in the weekend, which in itself is not unusual. But the consequences of the blow are such that Day is in a coma and in an “extremely critical condition”. Again, nothing but positive wishes about his eventual recovery first and foremost, but in an era where concussion in the football codes is as alarming as ever, combat spots’ existence, like boxing, could/would/should be on borrowed time with cases like this.

20. TV ratings worry the pants off me. By far the most important and major revenue source for all the sport we love to watch, it helps grow the professionalism and the standards, and the access really. But as TV viewership declines, so does the viewership with live sport. And we all waited with bated breath for the NRL Grand Final numbers in the hope maybe they would be good, and it wasn’t just sport in general in trouble, that maybe rugby league was still on an upward trajectory and its just everyone else.

Nope, it was down too. Usually something that rates at times near 3m nationally, it was around 1.8m. The AFL Grand Final, with an engaged Sydney audience, has been on a trajectory over 3.5m, topping 4m occasionally, it was under 3m for the first time in years. Australia Open primetime slots were down, cricket was good but still down, be it the summer on Seven or The Ashes mid-year on Nine.

What does this mean? It means less people are watching live sport. And when advertisers hear that, they’ll be paying less to the networks for the privilege of putting 30 seconds of their product in front of the eyeballs of footy fans. And that then means TV networks will hand over less cash, subsequently, to the sporting bodies for the rights to broadcast their fixtures.

It doesn’t mean that we’re all destined to see the days of the 1980s return where players need a job outside of footy and only one game is broadcast a week and all that nostalgia. But the idea that salaries will keep going up and up is gone, the idea the game can grow at the same rate looks doomed. So unless someone makes Foxtel honest (nudge nudge Amazon Prime) or this is only a lull, and once we get over Fortnite and Korean boy-bands we will all fall back in love with Friday night in front of the telly watching footy, it’s a big, big concern.

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neptunecreek · 6 years

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The Foilies 2018

Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency

Government transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars.

But when a public agency ignores, breaks or twists the law, your recourse varies by jurisdiction. In some states, when an official improperly responds to your public records request, you can appeal to a higher bureaucratic authority or seek help from an ombudsperson. In most states, you can take the dispute to court.

Public shaming and sarcasm, however, are tactics that can be applied anywhere.

The California-based news organization Reveal tweets photos of chickpeas or coffee beans to represent each day a FOIA response is overdue, and asks followers to guess how many there are. The alt weekly DigBoston has sent multiple birthday cakes and edible arrangements to local agencies on the one-year anniversary of delayed public records requests. And here, at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, we give out The Foilies during Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of open-government advocacy.

In its fourth year, The Foilies recognizes the worst responses to records requests, outrageous efforts to stymie transparency and the most absurd redactions. These tongue-in-cheek pseudo-awards are hand-chosen by EFF’s team based on nominations from fellow transparency advocates, participants in #FOIAFriday on Twitter, and, in some cases, our own personal experience.

If you haven’t heard of us before, EFF is a nonprofit based in San Francisco that works on the local, national and global level to defend and advance civil liberties as technology develops. As part of this work, we file scores of public records requests and take agencies like the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Los Angeles Police Department to court to liberate information that belongs to the public.

Because shining a spotlight is sometimes the best the litigation strategy, we are pleased to announce the 2018 winners of The Foilies.

Quick links to the winners:

The Mulligan Award - Pres. Donald J. Trump

FOIA Fee of the Year - Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Best Set Design in a Transparency Theater Production - Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed

Special Achievement for Analog Conversion - Former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

The Winger Award for FOIA Feet Dragging - FBI

The Prime Example Award – Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (Maine)

El Premio del Desayuno Más Redactado - CIA

The Courthouse Bully Award - Every Agency Suing a Requester

The Lawless Agency Award - U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The Franz Kafka Award for Most Secrets About Secretive Secrecy - CIA

Special Recognition for Congressional Overreach - U.S. House of Representatives

The Data Disappearance Award - Trump Administration

The Danger in the Dark Award - The Army Corps of Engineers

The Business Protection Agency Award - The Food and Drug Administration

The Exhausted Mailman Award - Bureau of Indian Affairs

Crime & Punishment Award - Martin County Commissioners (Florida)

The Square Footage Award - Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (Florida)

These Aren’t the Records You’re Looking For Award - San Diego City Councilmember Chris Cate

The Mulligan Award - Pres. Donald J. Trump

Since assuming the presidency, Donald Trump has skipped town more than 55 days to visit his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to sites like trumpgolfcount.com and NBC. He calls it his “Winter White House,” where he wines and dines and openly strategizes how to respond to North Korean ballistic missile tests with the Japanese prime minister for all his paid guests to see and post on Facebook. The fact that Trump’s properties have become secondary offices and remain a source of income for his family raises significant questions about transparency, particularly if club membership comes with special access to the president. To hold the administration accountable, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a FOIA request for the visitor logs, but received little in response. CREW sued and, after taking another look, the Secret Service provided details about the Japanese leader’s entourage. As Politico and others reported, the Secret Service ultimately admitted they’re not actually keeping track. The same can’t be said about Trump’s golf score.

FOIA Fee of the Year - Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Sexual assault in prison is notoriously difficult to measure due to stigma, intimidation, and apathetic bureaucracy. Nevertheless, MuckRock reporter Nathanael King made a valiant effort to find out whatever he could about these investigations in Texas, a state once described by the Dallas Voice as the “Prison Rape Capital of the U.S.” However, the numbers that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice came back with weren’t quite was he was expecting. TDCJ demanded he fork over a whopping $1,132,024.30 before the agency would release 260,000 pages of records that it said would take 61,000 hours of staff time to process. That in itself may be an indicator of the scope of the problem. However, to the agency’s credit, they pointed the reporter in the direction of other statistical records compiled to comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, which TDCJ provided for free.

Best Set Design in a Transparency Theater Production - Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed

“Transparency theater” is the term we use to describe an empty gesture meant to look like an agency is embracing open government, when really it’s meant to obfuscate. For example, an agency may dump an overwhelming number of documents and put them on display for cameras. But because there are so many records, the practice actually subverts transparency by making it extremely difficult to find the most relevant records in the haystack.

Such was the case with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who released 1.476 million documents about a corruption probe to show his office was supporting public accountability.

“The documents filled hundreds of white cardboard boxes, many stacked up waist high against walls and spread out over rows of tables in the cavernous old City Council chamber,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Leon Stafford wrote. “Reed used some of the boxes as the backdrop for his remarks, creating a six-foot wall behind him.”

FOIA papercuts Credit: J. Scott Trubey/AJC

Journalists began to dig through the documents and quickly discovered that many were blank pages or fully redacted, and in some cases the type was too small for anyone to read. AJC reporter J. Scott Trubey’s hands became covered in papercut gore. Ultimately, the whole spectacle was a waste of trees: The records already existed in a digital format. It’s just that a couple of hard drives on a desk don’t make for a great photo op.

Special Achievement for Analog Conversion - Former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray

Credit: Phil Mocek

In the increasingly digital age, more and more routine office communication is occurring over mobile devices. With that in mind, transparency activist Phil Mocek filed a request for text messages (and other app communications) sent or received by now-former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and many of his aides. The good news is the city at least partially complied. The weird news is that rather than seek the help of an IT professional to export the text messages, some staff simply plopped a cell phone onto a photocopier. Mocek tells EFF he’s frustrated that the mayor’s office refused to search their personal devices for relevant text messages. They argued that city policy forbids using personal phones for city business—and of course, no one would violate those rules. However, we’ll concede that thwarting transparency is probably the least of the allegations against Murray, who resigned in September 2017 amid a child sex-abuse scandal.

The Winger Award for FOIA Feet Dragging - FBI

Thirty years ago, the hair-rock band Winger released “Seventeen”—a song about young love that really hasn’t withstood the test of time. Similarly, the FBI’s claim that it would take 17 years to produce a series of records about civil rights-era surveillance also didn’t withstand the judicial test of time.

As Politico reported, George Washington University professor and documentary filmmaker Nina Seavey asked for records about how the FBI spied on antiwar and civil rights activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The FBI claimed they would only process 500 pages a month, which would mean the full set of 110,000 pages wouldn’t be complete until 2034.

Just as Winger’s girlfriend’s dad disapproved in the song, so did a federal judge, writing in her opinion: “The agency's desire for administrative convenience is simply not a valid justification for telling Professor Seavey that she must wait decades for the documents she needs to complete her work.”

The Prime Example Award – Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (Maine)

When Amazon announced last year it was seeking a home for its second headquarters, municipalities around the country rushed to put together proposals to lure the tech giant to their region. Knowing that in Seattle Amazon left a substantial footprint on a community (particularly around housing), transparency organizations like MuckRock and the Lucy Parsons Labs followed up with records requests for these cities’ sales pitches.

More than 20 cities, such as Chula Vista, California, and Toledo, Ohio, produced the records—but other agencies, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Jacksonville, Florida, refused to turn over the documents. The excuses varied, but perhaps the worst response came from Maine’s Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority. The agency did provide the records, but claimed that by opening an email containing 37 pages of documents, MuckRock had automatically agreed to pay an exorbitant $750 in “administrative and legal fees.” Remind us to disable one-click ordering.

El Premio del Desayuno Más Redactado - CIA

Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold has filed thousands of records requests over his career, but one redaction has become his all-time favorite. Leopold was curious whether CIA staff are assailed by the same stream of office announcements as every other workplace. So, he filed a FOIA request—and holy Hillenkoetter, do they. Deep in the document set was an announcement that “the breakfast burritos are back by popular demand,” with a gigantic redaction covering half the page citing a personal privacy exemption. What are they hiding? Is Anthony Bourdain secretly a covert agent? Did David Petraeus demand extra guac? This could be the CIA’s greatest Latin American mystery since Nicaraguan Contra drug-trafficking.

The Courthouse Bully Award - Every Agency Suing a Requester

As director of the privacy advocacy group We See You Watching Lexington, Michael Maharrey filed a public records request to find out how his city was spending money on surveillance cameras. After the Lexington Police Department denied the request, he appealed to the Kentucky Attorney General’s office—and won.

Rather than listen to the state’s top law enforcement official, Lexington Police hauled Maharrey into court.

As the Associated Press reported last year, lawsuits like these are reaching epidemic proportions. The Louisiana Department of Education sued a retired educator who was seeking school enrollment data for his blog. Portland Public Schools in Oregon sued a parent who was curious about employees paid while on leave for alleged misconduct. Michigan State University sued ESPN after it requested police reports on football players allegedly involved in a sexual assault. Meanwhile, the University of Kentucky and Western Kentucky University have each sued their own student newspapers whose reporters were investigating sexual misconduct by school staff.

These lawsuits are despicable. At their most charitable, they expose huge gaps in public records laws that put requesters on the hook for defending lawsuits they never anticipated. At their worst, they are part of a systematic effort to discourage reporters and concerned citizens from even thinking of filing a public records request in the first place.

The Lawless Agency Award - U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In the chaos of President Trump’s immigration ban in early 2017, the actions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and higher-ups verged on unlawful. And if CBP officials already had their mind set on violating all sorts of laws and the Constitution, flouting FOIA seems like small potatoes.

Yet that’s precisely what CBP did when the ACLU filed a series of FOIA requests to understand local CBP agents’ actions as they implemented Trump’s immigration order. ACLU affiliates throughout the country filed 18 separate FOIA requests with CBP, each of which targeted records documenting how specific field offices, often located at airports or at physical border crossings, were managing and implementing the ban. The requests made clear that they were not seeking agency-wide documents but rather wanted information about each specific location’s activities.

CBP ignored the requests and, when several ACLU affiliates filed 13 different lawsuits, CBP sought to further delay responding by asking a federal court panel to consolidate all the cases into a single lawsuit. To use this procedure—which is usually reserved for class actions or other complex national cases—CBP essentially misled courts about each of the FOIA requests and claimed each was seeking the exact same set of records.

The court panel saw through CBP’s shenanigans and refused to consolidate the cases. But CBP basically ignored the panel’s decision, acting as though it had won. First, it behaved as though all the requests came from a single lawsuit by processing and batching all the documents from the various requests into a single production given to the ACLU. Second, it selectively released records to particular ACLU attorneys, even when those records weren’t related to their lawsuits about activities at local CBP offices.

Laughably, CBP blames the ACLU for its self-created mess, calling their requests and lawsuits “haphazard” and arguing that the ACLU and other FOIA requesters have strained the agency’s resources in seeking records about the immigration ban. None of that would be a problem if CBP had responded to the FOIA requests in the first place. Of course, the whole mess could also have been avoided if CBP never implemented an unconstitutional immigration order.

The Franz Kafka Award for Most Secrets About Secretive Secrecy - CIA

The CIA’s aversion to FOIA is legendary, but this year the agency doubled down on its mission of thwarting transparency. As Emma Best detailed for MuckRock, the intelligence agency had compiled a 20-page report that laid out at least 126 reasons why it could deny FOIA requests that officials believed would disclose the agency’s “sources and methods.”

But that report? Yeah, it’s totally classified. Which is what the agency told Best when they withheld the report in response to her request. So not only do you not get to know what the CIA’s up to, but its reasons for rejecting your FOIA request are also a state secret.

Special Recognition for Congressional Overreach - U.S. House of Representatives

Because Congress wrote the Freedom of Information Act, it had the awesome and not-at-all-a-conflict-of-interest power to determine which parts of the federal government must obey it. That’s why it may not shock you that since passing FOIA more than 50 years ago, Congress has never made itself subject to the law.

So far, requesters have been able to fill in the gaps by requesting records from federal agencies that correspond with Congress. For example, maybe a lawmaker writes to the U.S. Department of Puppies asking for statistics on labradoodles. That adorable email chain wouldn’t be available through Congress, but you could get it from the Puppies Department’s FOIA office. (Just to be clear: This isn’t a real federal agency. We just wish it was.)

In 2017 it’s become increasingly clear that some members of Congress believe that FOIA can never reach anything they do, even when they or their staffs share documents or correspond with federal agencies. The House Committee on Financial Services sent a threatening letter to the Treasury Department telling them to not comply with FOIA. After the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget released records that came from the House Ways and Means Committee, the House intervened in litigation to argue that their records cannot be obtained under FOIA.

In many cases, congressional correspondence with agencies is automatically covered by FOIA, and the fact that a document originated with Congress isn’t by itself enough to shield it from disclosure. The Constitution says Congress gets to write laws; it’s just too bad it doesn’t require Congress to actually read them.

The Data Disappearance Award - Trump Administration

Last year, we gave the “Make America Opaque Again Award” award to newly inaugurated President Trump for failing to follow tradition and release his tax returns during the campaign. His talent for refusing to make information available to the public has snowballed into an administration that deletes public records from government websites. From the National Park Service’s climate action plans for national parks, to the U.S.D.A. animal welfare datasets, to nonpartisan research on the corporate income tax, the Trump Administration has decided to make facts that don’t support its positions disappear. The best example of this vanishing game is the Environmental Protection Agency’s removal of the climate change website in April 2017, which only went back online after being scrubbed of climate change references, studies and information to educate the public.

The Danger in the Dark Award - The Army Corps of Engineers

When reporters researching the Dakota Access Pipeline on contested tribal lands asked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact statement, they were told nope, you can’t have it. Officials cited public safety concerns as reason to deny the request: “The referenced document contains information related to sensitive infrastructure that if misused could endanger peoples’ lives and property.”

Funny thing is, the Army Corps had already published the same document on its website a year earlier. What changed in that year? Politics. The Standing Rock Sioux, other tribal leaders and “Water Protector” allies had since staged a multi-month peaceful protest and sit-in to halt construction of the pipeline.

The need for public scrutiny of the document became clear in June when a U.S. federal judge found that the environmental impact statement omitted key considerations, such as the impact of an oil spill on the Standing Rock Sioux’s hunting and fishing rights as well as the impact on environmental justice.

The Business Protection Agency Award - The Food and Drug Administration

The FDA’s mission is to protect the public from harmful pharmaceuticals, but they’ve recently fallen into the habit of protecting powerful drug companies rather than informing people about potential drug risks.

This past year, Charles Seife at the Scientific American requested documents about the drug approval process for a controversial drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The agency cited business exemptions and obscured listed side effects as well as testing methodology for the drug, despite claims that the drug company manipulated results during product trials and pressured the FDA to push an ineffective drug onto the market. The agency even redacted portions of a Bloomberg Businessweek article about the drug because the story provided names and pictures of teenagers living with DMD.

The Exhausted Mailman Award - Bureau of Indian Affairs

Credit: Russ Kick

Requesting information that has already been made public should be quick and fairly simple—but not when you’re dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A nomination sent into EFF requested all logs of previously released FOIA information by the BIA. The requester even stated that he’d prefer links to the information, which agencies typically provide for records they have already put on their website. Instead, BIA printed 1,390 pages of those logs, stuffed them into 10 separate envelopes, and sent them via registered mail for a grand total cost to taxpayers of $179.

Crime & Punishment Award - Martin County Commissioners, Florida

Generally The Foilies skew cynical, because in many states, open records laws are toothless and treated as recommendations rather than mandates. One major exception to the rule is Florida, where violations of its “Sunshine Law” can result in criminal prosecution.

That brings us to Martin County Commissioners Ed Fielding and Sarah Heard and former Commissioner Anne Scott, each of whom were booked into jail in November on multiple charges related to violations of the state’s public records law. As Jose Lambiet of GossipExtra and the Miami Herald reported, the case emerges from a dispute between the county and a mining company that already resulted in taxpayers footing a $500,000 settlement in a public records lawsuit. Among the allegations, the officials were accused of destroying, delaying and altering records.

The cases are set to go to trial in December 2018, Lambiet told EFF. Of course, people are innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn’t make public officials immune to The Foilies.

The Square Footage Award - Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (Florida)

When a government mistake results in a death, it’s important for the community to get all the facts. In the case of 63-year-old Blane Land, who was fatally hit by a Jacksonville Sheriff patrol car, those facts include dozens of internal investigations against the officer behind the wheel. The officer, Tim James, has since been arrested on allegations that he beat a handcuffed youth, raising the question of why he was still on duty after the vehicular fatality.

Land’s family hired an attorney, and the attorney filed a request for records. Rather than having a complete airing of the cop’s alleged misdeeds, the sheriff came back with a demand for $314,687.91 to produce the records, almost all of which was for processing and searching by the internal affairs division. Amid public outcry over the prohibitive fee, the sheriff took to social media to complain about how much work it would take to go through all the records in the 1,600-foot cubic storage room filled with old-school filing cabinets.

The family is not responsible for the sheriff’s filing system or feng shui, nor is it the family’s fault that the sheriff kept an officer on the force as the complaints—and the accompanying disciplinary records—stacked up.

These Aren’t the Records You’re Looking For Award - San Diego City Councilmember Chris Cate

Shortly after last year’s San Diego Comic-Con and shortly before the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the city of San Diego held a ceremony to name a street after former resident and actor Mark Hamill. A private citizen (whose day job involves writing The Foilies) wanted to know: How does a Hollywood star get his own roadway?

The city produced hundreds of pages related to his request that showed how an effort to change the name of Chargers Boulevard after the football team abandoned the city led to the creation of Mark Hamill Drive. The document set even included Twitter direct messages between City Councilmember Chris Cate and the actor. However, Cate used an ineffective black marker to redact, accidentally releasing Hamill’s cell phone number and other personal contact details.

As tempting as it was to put Luke Skywalker (and the voice of the Joker) on speed dial, the requester did not want to be responsible for doxxing one of the world’s most beloved actors. He alerted Cate’s office of the error, which then re-uploaded properly redacted documents.

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monkeyandelf · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/7-minor-arguments-that-led-to-laughably-ridiculous-crimes/

7 Minor Arguments That Led To Laughably Ridiculous Crimes

What’s that saying about making a mountain out of a molehill? The cliche is important to keep in mind when someone does something that gets your blood boiling, so if you’re the type of person who vows revenge when your waiter accidentally puts ice in your drink after you asked for no ice, then may we recommend you take it down a notch or two thousand.

During the course of any given day, you’re bound to have any number of minor disagreements, so it’s vital to keep your cool, no matter how idiotic you think the other person is because there are plenty of yokels who go off the deep end for the pettiest of reasons.

Check out some of them below and while you do, we’re going to figure out just what the heck a molehill actually is.

“But, Mom, I Don’t Want To Go!”

Kids fighting with their parents is older than time itself, but at some point the child needs to control his or her emotions. Like, say, when the kid is a full-blown adult.

A 39-year-old woman in Indianapolis attacked her mother with a cheeseburger after the mom told her she could no longer stay with her. Because unless they’re named George Costanza, no 39-year-old should be shacking be up with mom or dad.

After the mom broke the news to her daughter, the two got into a fight at a McDonald’s drive-thru and then got their order. And then police can fill you in on what went down:

“While her daughter was seated in the front passenger seat she took a bite out of her cheeseburger,” an official said. “The victim stated her daughter yelled ‘B—h I outta kill you’ and hit her in the left side of her face with her hand and the cheeseburger.”

The daughter then fled the scene. Hopefully, whomever took her in knows they run the risk of getting pummeled by greasy cuisine when they ask her to leave.

Kirk Is a Jerk

These two knuckleheads almost put the “die” in “Jedi.” A man in Oklahoma City was arrested for roughing up another fella after they got into an argument over whether “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” is better.

Twenty-three-year-old Jerome Whyte got into it with the unidentified victim in an apartment when the dispute erupted. Hard to believe they weren’t in their parents’ basement. We’re just as surprised as you are.

The two exchanged some insults before things turned physical — shoving and choking, to be precise. In fact, Whyte choked the vicim so much he nearly passed out and he cut himself when he tried to grab a knife the victim had grabbed to defend himself. Police later beamed up Whyte (that’s Trekkie lingo for “arrested”) to the station on charges of assault and battery, possession of marijuana and other warrants.

A Killer Story

Breaking news: people still read the newspaper. A 51-year-old man in Germany wound up dead after he got into a fight with his 42-year-old newspaper delivery man. Yeah, you read that right.

The two had repeatedly gotten into tiffs before because the customer was annoyed the paper didn’t show up on his doorstep when he wanted it to be there. Things reached a fever pitch and the delivery man stabbed the customer with a knife. A relative of the victim saw the whole incident and called police, who arrested the delivery man. The customer went to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

All of which begs the question: can you imagine how upset the ones of other people in town who still get the paper delivered must’ve been when they woke up the next day to find nothing waiting for them on their driveway? Here’s a hot tip for them: get the Internet and read the news online like everyone else.

RELATED: 10 Shocking Butt Crimes

Hotter Under the Collar Than the Food on the Plate

Some people just can’t take criticism. Jodi Ecklund, of Merrimack, H.H., got into a standoff with police after she metaphorically lost her raviolis when her boyfriend said the spaghetti she cooked for him was just “okay.”

After he used that fateful word, Ecklund punched Jason Martin in the face, arm and hand. Martin skedaddled out of the apartment while Ecklund, who had two guns, barricaded herself inside while cops rushed to the scene.

Give Ecklund credit because if the cops are going to come to your door, you might as well go full-blown loony tunes. She threatened to kill officers if they entered the home and threw some of her boyfriend’s stuff out of the window. She’s a swipe right on Tinder if ever there was one.

Eventually, officers weaseled their way into the house and arrested Ecklund after a few hours. Our guess? She gave up because she was hungry.

There She Is, Miss Demeanor

Assault is this beauty pageant hopeful’s talent. Police in Stuart, Fla. arrested a 24-year-old contestant in the most definitely prestigious Miss Sailfish Regatta Bikini Contest for bopping a rival in the show with a high heel shoe.

Miss Congeniality, indeed.

Erica Miza claims the 23-year-old victim had engaged in some real trash talk by saying she was going to whoop her butt. After the pageant ended (we don’t know who won), the two continued jawing at each other before they indulged in every man’s fantasy and got physical — come on, you know you’re picturing two bikini-clad babes coming to blows in some sort of soft porn Cinemax after dark flick come to life. Miza shoved the woman and then swung her shoes, which hit the victim.

As if that’s not juicy enough, the victim claims Mize told her “you should go to the gyno because you’re in for a rude awakening.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious diss that the judges should’ve taken into account when giving their scores.

Pretty Sure the Birthday Wish Did Not Come True

Well, this crime certainly takes the cake. Police in New Britain, Conn. arrested Carlos Gonzalez-Oliver after he killed a man during an argument over birthday cake. Not too many crimes can hold a (birthday) candle to this one.

Gonzalez-Oliver, 41, was returning to his boarding house with a birthday cake for a resident when another tenant, who would be the one to die, started harassing him.

“The victim banged on his door with an ax, destroyed the birthday cake and threw some of it at the door,” reports the Hartford Courant.

Gonzalez-Oliver, who has racked up a whopping 20 criminal convictions over the last 21 years, says he stabbed the man after the victim tried to go at him with the ax. He fled the scene before cops tracked him down.

It’s like they say: it’s not a birthday party until someone starts swinging an ax? Oh, wait, they don’t say that? Well, they will now.

Dog Poop and Bullets

Being neighborly has gone to the dogs. A Tampa, Fla. man shot his neighbor after the neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn.

Joshame Sewell, 20, became so incensed that Donte Roberson’s pooch went number two in his yard that he grabbed a rifle and opened fire on Roberson, hitting him in the leg and hand.

Sewell remained on the run for a few days before police captured him.

Aside from being too loud, letting Fido do his business on someone else’s property is probably the worst thing a neighbor can do, so we can understand why the guy was ticked off. And while you’ve got to have some level of sympathy for Sewell, you can’t side with him here.

Picking up the poop with a shovel and flinging it back onto the neighbor’s property? Yes. But reacting like some hothead in a Quentin Tarantino movie? No. You’ve got to draw the line (of fire) somewhere.

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 7 years

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Inside Marvel Studios: Secrets About 'Black Panther,' 'Thor: Ragnarok' 'Spider-Man' & More!

It's a risk letting anyone see how the superhero sausage is made, but that's exactly what Marvel Studios did when they opened the doors of their offices to a pack of reporters on Monday night for an Open House. The itinerary for the event was shrouded in secrecy--Marvel's usual M.O. when it comes to anything connected to their Cinematic Universe--so each room on the tour contained some new surprise, unfolding like a game of Clue where the players were mostly actors named Chris.

RELATED: Talking 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,' Bad Guys and Baby Groot With Marvel Boss Kevin Feige

THE LOBBY: "A lot of people get to go into the office lobby, but few people get to come past here," our tour guide, executive producer Jeremy Latcham (The Avengers and Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man: Homecoming), says. The recently renovated offices occupy the entire second floor of their building on the Walt Disney lot in Burbank--a far cry from the offices the studio used to apparently share with a kite factory.

Three iterations of the Iron Man suit loom over the lobby couches, giving the waiting room a Tony Stark's-lab-before-it-was-blown-up-in-a-terrorist-attack vibe, while Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana's costumes "straight from the set" of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 are on display next to the receptionist's desk, with a cheeky sign warning, "Obviously if you touch the costumes or stand on the stage, Baby Groot will push the button!" (The lobby is also the first and last place in Marvel HQ where anyone is allowed to take photos.)

THE DEVELOPMENT LOUNGE: Where the Marvel team develops their film slate and how the cinematic universe is all connected--and if the room is any indication, where they play ping-pong and pin ball. The room showcases a model of the Helicarrier from Avengers and another of Disneyland, walls lined with signed Marvel posters ("Kevin, you rock!" Saldana scrawled on Guardians of the Galaxy), and Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, is propped next to TV.

There's a mural painted on one wall showing Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa staring off at a tree full of panthers and--though Black Panther doesn't finish filming until Wednesday and won't hit theaters until 2018--we assembled around a coffee table topped with an encased Baby Groot to watch three minutes of sizzle reel for the movie.

"This is not a world that we've ever seen--as big as it is, as advanced as it is, and also the respect and the homage paid to its past traditions," Angela Bassett, serving for the gods in regal headdresses and flowing white dreadlocks as T'Challa's mother, Ramonda, teased in the clip. Judging from the concept art and brief glimpses of behind-the-scenes footage, the film will be as lush as it is sci-fi: shots of T'Challa in his upgraded Black Panther suit in the jungle, fighting in a bar and giving a political speech. A mountain glowing with vibranium. At one point, if I'm not mistaken, I saw an armored rhinoceros. (I think I saw an armored rhinoceros. There are probably weaponized rhinos in Black Panther, guys.)

THE LIBRARY: "Obviously, a somewhat condensed comic book library," Latcham disclaims while gesturing to shelves full of comic books that run the length of an entire hallway. "Not quite everything we would want. We want all the comics. At all time." Littered amongst the comic books are various props from various movies: a stunt Eye of Agamotto (the real one is with composer Michael Giacchino), a model of an Orloni, the little alien Star-Lord uses as a microphone in the Guardians of the Galaxy opening credits, one of Captain America's real shields. ("There are a lot of shields that exist.")

VISUAL DEVELOPMENT: Bypassing an innocuous enough cubicle farm, we're led to some of the most privileged offices at Marvel: of the "vis dev" team, headed by Ryan Meinerding, where one can find concept art for movies in all stages of production. Like in Meinerding's own office, where a computer drawing of Thanos, for the upcoming Infinity Wars, is being projected onscreen, showing a smirking Thanos sans his customary armor. "He's awesome. He's powerful. He's got a big glove with some jewels in it," Meinerding plays coy. (Indeed, all the Infinity Stones are present.) What about that tower of deconstructed rubble behind him? "Oh... [Laughs] I can't talk about that one."

One office over, director Peyton Reed has popped in to work on Ant-Man & The Wasp. The walls are lined with concept art for the movie, including a gag with a bulldog chomping on Luis' shrunken van, a more metallic Hope van Dyne-era Wasp suit and rejiggered suits for Ant-Man and Giant-Man (Paul Rudd at various sizes). But is that Sharon Stone in the Janet van Dyne-era Wasp suit? Reed laughs, "It is not Sharon Stone."

And then there's something new: concept art of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, in a slightly darker and grittier take on her classic comic book suit, complete with the star on her chest and a shorter, blonde haircut. In another shot, she's seen fighting two metal robots with an inferno blazing around her fist. "It's just enough to inspire everyone, to get everyone super psyched," Latchman explains. "So by the time the Captain Marvel movie actually comes out, whether she'll be that exact costume? Who knows." It may change when a director is hired. "Actually, it does have a director. They've just--No?" Reed called from the back of the room. Latcham looked momentarily shocked before both laughed and said it was only a joke. (Or was it? Who knows.)

EDIT BAYS: A dimly lit room with one large screen and plenty of seating around it, where Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is on hand to edit visual effects. For us, though, he's announcing a new character in the film--but it is not a classic Thor character. "He features heavily in the Planet Hulk storyline which we're borrowing from," Waititi says of Korg the Kronan, an 8-foot tall rock creature in, as he puts it, "a 2017 metal bikini."

"Being made of rocks, we really wanted to get someone like The Rock to play him, but there wasn't enough chicken or salmon in Australia to sustain both him and Chris [Hemsworth]," Waititi explains. "So, the next best thing was a hot--super hot--export from New Zealand. A great character actor named Taika."

Waititi provided a look at Korg in various stages of VFX, from the director donning the mo-cap suit ("The emasculation suit, as Mark Ruffalo likes to call it") to a rough cut of the scene where the lovable brute first meets and befriends Thor. I'll say this much: It's all very funny, closer to the tone of the director's last film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, than The Dark World. Korg also has a silent sidekick, Miek, an insectoid larva-thing operating an exoskeleton with knife hands. Miek is absolutely repulsive and so, so cool.

SCREENING ROOM: An intimate theater in which co-president Louis D'Esposito claims all Marvel films start and end, and where we are being treated to dailies from "Motherland"--the production title of Black Panther. The footage is raw ("Blue screens. Bad sound. You're going to hear cursing. You're going to see a grip's leg in one shot," D'Esposito warns) but it really is quite stunning.

We see bits of two sequences, the first involving King T'challa's correlation at Warrior Falls: his royal bodyguards, the Dora Milaje, rhythmically stomping and chanting aboard a ship. A shirtless Boseman descending a set of stairs into a pool of water and receiving the power of the Black Panther. The footage is beautiful and colorful and musical--unlike anything we've seen in the MCU thus far. The second, potentially more spoiler-y sequence, involves Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis from Age of Ultron, upgraded with some sort of prosthetic arm) meeting Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman from Captain America: Civil War) in a South Korean casino to discuss mixtapes and vibranium.

Following the dailies, D'Esposito cued a string of VFX shots from Spider-Man: Homecoming (or "Summer of George," as it was known). Director Jon Watts was busy scoring the movie with composer Giacchino, but our sampling of the 2,300 effect shots were so brief it's hard to describe exactly what we saw: Peter's pre-Civil War suit is the non-Stark Industries one seen in the trailer. One of the weapons wielded by the villains is a reclaimed and modified Ultron arm. Tom Holland's abs. "His body is real," D'Esposito joked. "We did not touch it."

THE COURTYARD: Our tour ends where it began, at an open-air courtyard in the center of the building where drinks and sushi are being served. "We go away and we have creative retreats together," Latchman adds. "Basically we'll rent a house in Palm Springs and we'll all go out to the desert with a big stack of Post-it notes and plan out the next Phase." What Marvel Phase were they discussing at their last retreat? "If I told you that, you guys would know everything!"

As a goodbye, we're greeted by president Kevin Feige, who oversees the entire operation and knows answers to questions that haven't even been asked yet. All Feige wants to talk about, though, is last weekend's Star Wars Celebration and The Last Jedi trailer. When the topic returns to Marvel's slate and specifics about, say, whether there's a Guardians of the Galaxy Easter egg in the new Thor trailer, he deadpans, "I can neither confirm nor deny." Alas, that answer is hidden somewhere else inside Marvel Studios.

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 7 years

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Inside Marvel Studios: Secrets About 'Black Panther,' 'Thor: Ragnarok' 'Spider-Man' & More!

RELATED: Talking 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,' Bad Guys and Baby Groot With Marvel Boss Kevin Feige

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helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog · 7 years

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Inside Marvel Studios: Secrets About 'Black Panther,' 'Thor: Ragnarok' 'Spider-Man' & More!

RELATED: Talking 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,' Bad Guys and Baby Groot With Marvel Boss Kevin Feige

#_revsp:new_provider_with_logo_342 #_uuid:bc282c69-7ca6-3b3e-bb71-c4bcec663193 #_lmsid:a0VK0000001yfWcMAI

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